Enable or disable right-click context menus in Windows File Explorer

We have already seen how to enable or disable right-click context menu in Internet Explorer. In this post we will see how to enable or disable right-click context menus in Windows Explorer or File Explorer in Windows 8.

Enable or disable right-click context menus in Explorer

Using Group Policy Editor

Those users who have the Group Policy Editor included in their versions of Windows 8 may Run gpedit.msc to open it. next navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer. Windows 7 users may see Windows Explorer being mentioned instead of File Explorer.

In the right pane, double-click on Remove File Explorer’s default context menu to open its settings box.

This setting removes shortcut menus from the desktop and File Explorer. Shortcut menus appear when you right-click an item. If you enable this setting, menus do not appear when you right-click the desktop or when you right-click the items in File Explorer. This setting does not prevent users from using other methods to issue commands available on the shortcut menus.

Select Configured > Apply. Exit and restart your computer.

Using Registry Editor

You can also use the Registry Editor to Enable or disable right-click context menus in Windows Explorer. To do so Run regedit and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Right-click in the right pane and create a new 32-Bit DWORD value and name it NoViewContextMenu. Giving it a value of 1 will disable context menu in File Explorer. To re-enable context menu, give it a value 0 or delete NoViewContextMenu.